MIAMI – A man who Miami police said tried to outrun officers Thursday not only received a felony fleeing and eluding charge, but an animal cruelty charge as well.
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That’s because police say the driver sped away from cops and ran multiple stop signs with two unsecured kittens in the vehicle.
An arrest report states that Miami police tried to pull over Jordan John Duberry, 23, of Fort Myers, at Southwest 12th Avenue and West Flagler Street in Little Havana as he drove an Infiniti G37 without a license plate and ran a “solid” red light.
After the officer activated his lights, police said Duberry, who had a suspended license, turned around, looked at him and then took off at a “high rate of speed” and drove the wrong way in traffic, leading police to deactivate their lights.
After running multiple stop signs, authorities said Duberry turned into a dead-end parking lot on Coral Way near Southwest 13th Avenue and officers took him into custody, the report states.
The officer saw “two baby kittens” inside the car that initially “appeared to be lifeless” but were alive, police said.
“Although a cage was present, the kittens were not placed inside it and were instead observed moving freely within the vehicle, specifically on the floorboard of the front passenger side,” he wrote.
The officer wrote that the kittens were “not secured by any means, leaving them extremely vulnerable” as Duberry sped through the Little Havana and Coral Way areas.
“Due to their young age and small size, any sudden braking, abrupt turns, or a traffic collision could have caused the kittens to be crushed, thrown, or otherwise severely injured,” he wrote, constituting a “disregard for their safety and could reasonably be considered animal cruelty.”
According to jail records, a judge agreed on Friday, finding probable cause to charge Duberry with the misdemeanor animal cruelty count as well as fleeing and eluding and resisting arrest without violence
The resisting arrest charge came after police said Duberry “tensed his body and braced his extremities in an effort to resist” as an officer tried to secure him in the back of a cruiser as he yelled towards his girlfriend.
As of Friday, he was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $3,500 bond.
Authorities said Duberry’s girlfriend took the kittens.